Immigration detainees are in legal limbo: Ken Mayeaux

Updated April 9, 2014 at 5:39 PM;Posted April 7, 2014 at 1:07 PM

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Members of the Gil family gather March 11, 2014, as their uncle and father, Guillermo Gil, is held in the privately-run Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, which houses U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees. Guillermo Gil lived in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant for 20 years before being detained in October 2013, said family members.
(AP Photo/seattlepi.com, Joshua Trujillo)

Louisiana has the highest prison population per capita in the country, with one of every 86 adults in the state incarcerated. But those aren't the only people being held behind bars. Far from sight of most Louisianians, Immigration and Customs Enforcement maintains jail beds for more than 2,000 immigrants in three rural facilities. In the past few decades U.S. immigration detention has skyrocketed. At a cost of more than $2 billion per year to American taxpayers, the federal government now keeps 34,000 immigrants locked up in immigrant detention every day, saying it is required to do so by Congress, in what is effectively a quota for filling detention beds.

While immigration detention continues to grow, however, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are trying to address the overcrowding in our prison system. Louisiana's own Sen. Mary Landrieu created the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections to study problems in the federal prisons including overcrowding, violence and prisoner re-entry following incarceration. Immigration detention, a system that imprisons more than 400,000 people a year, warrants the same thoughtful and strict considerations.

Some people must be detained -- like those who might pose a threat to the community. But the vast majority of immigrants don't need to be locked up to meet a court date or comply with court orders, and effective and humane alternatives to detention -- routinely used in criminal justice systems, including here in Louisiana -- cost just 17 cents to $17 per person, per day. A shift in funding from detention to alternatives would save taxpayers millions. But absent flexibility in the budget, the "quota, " which groups like the American Immigration Lawyers Association are working to reform, precludes these savings. It's bad policy, it's wasteful and inhumane, and it should be eliminated.

In late 2012, Human Rights First convened a conference of experts in Louisiana focused specifically on how to apply best practices from the criminal justice system, like alternatives to incarceration, to our immigration detention practices. We highlighted that, unlike in criminal courts, immigrants do not receive a government-appointed lawyer. This is a due-process issue exacerbated by the remoteness of our detention facilities. My immigration legal clinic at LSU is one of the few lifelines for immigrants detained in remote facilities, but my students can represent only a handful of the thousands who need assistance. In 2012, three immigration judges at Oakdale immigration court handled a staggering 12,000 cases. Only 13 percent of these immigrants had legal representation at some stage in their proceedings. And only one of the three facilities in Louisiana has a "legal orientation program" -- a Justice Department effort that supports legal information presentations for detained immigrants. A study in New York showed that immigrants with legal representation are 500 percent more likely to win their case.

Just as Congress now recognizes the need for change in our criminal justice system, so too it is time for Congress to reverse the trajectory on immigration detention that began in part in Louisiana 30 years ago with the erection of an immigrant prison in the small town of Oakdale. Jailing people just to fill detention beds, especially in remote facilities without meaningful access to counsel, is not consistent with Louisianians' values of fairness. If Sen. Landrieu can set the example in our criminal justice system, then we urge her to do the same with immigration detention. I hope Sen. Landrieu will join us as a strong voice against the detention bed quota.

Ken Mayeaux is assistant professor of professional practice at the Paul M Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University.